This weekend Wyatt McSpadden will have his first photo exhibit. Entitled Two Meat Plate, it features many of the terrific images he shot for the recent Texas Monthly BBQ issue (including the cover), along with a number of his classic barbecue photographs. This weekend,
– Two years ago Pierson’s BBQ closed in Houston. It was beloved, but owner Clarence Pierson had two bad knees which forced him to close. Now with two new knees, the joint has reopened. Pierson’s BBQ is back!– The Texas Book Festival is coming to Austin
The Texas Book Festival comes to Austin this weekend, and this year there’s a new food option – or three. Texas Monthly has partnered with three barbecue joints and a taco truck to create the TMBBQ ‘Cue Court. From 10-5 on Saturday and 11-5 on Sunday,
– There is a college football award called “Arby’s League of Brisket Smokin’ Hot Player of the Week.” That’s a mouthful for a promotional title. I wonder what they win?– If you’re in Austin for lunch today, you might want to try out Micklethwait Craft Meats. They’ll have
– The American Royal barbecue competition, aka the World Series of BBQ, was held last weekend. Tuffy Stone and his Cool Smoke team beat the big boys in the Invitational on Saturday while Iowa’s Smokey D’s BBQ beat out 535 other teams in the Open competition on Sunday.– A barbecue competition
– Meshack’s BBQ in Garland is named best BBQ in Dallas by the Dallas Observer.– The Dallas Observer also shares their top 10 BBQ joint list for the Dallas/Fort Worth area.– Costco now serves barbecue, and it comes in individual servings:And now with
Robert J. Lerma has gathered original signatures from some of the best pitmasters in the state. They are collected onto an image of an aged Bar-B-Q sign in Corsicana, Texas that he photographed last year. He has sold a number of the originals, but there is only one
Stephen Joseph arrived at his barbecue joint, Joseph’s Riverport Bar-B-Q, in Jefferson, Texas early in the morning to find all of his briskets and pork butts burnt to a crisp. Here’s how he recovered.[View the story “Smoking Hot and Fast in East Texas” on Storify]
The International Chefs Congress (ICC) is in its eighth year, but this weekend in New York they hosted their first ever barbecue competition. It was simply called Smoke @ ICC. Ten teams from six states were competing for the grand prize of a trip for four to South
– Two weeks ago the Carnivore’s Ball was held in Austin. It was a great party with barbecue from John Mueller. These photos by Robert Strickland will make you wish you were there.– The TCU football team is playing for more than just the game this weekend. If they win,
– On the proliferation of roadside barbecue joints as seen in Newsweek.– Brooks Place BBQ in Cypress is planning a move from their trailer to a brick and mortar location at FM 529 and Queenston in Houston. They’re also going to have to make some repairs
Over the weekend the final scene for Of Blood and Brine was filmed in a small café in Venus, Texas. A group of five seniors from the Art Institute of Dallas created the film and assembled a team of roughly thirty-five students to shoot it all
– Here’s a fascinating look at the many effects of foil wrapping on briskets and pork shoulders from food scientist Greg Blonder.– More food science – Should the fat cap stay or go? Meathead’s answer is that it should stay, or at least some of it, but not for
In today’s “Eat Like a Man” blog post, Josh Ozersky received a request from a reader for cooking tips to improve his backyard brisket. Instead of anything helpful, he got this reply:“The larger point about brisket…is that brisket sucks. There, I said it. It’s gigantic, it’s misshapen, and
– Lolis Eric Elie laments the “golden age of barbecue.” He aptly compares barbecue’s spread to that of the Blues, and equates barbecue in cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Atlanta as the work of cover bands.– AFAR magazine offers this tour of BBQ around the world. If you can
To start off this summer we released our list of the Fifty Best BBQ Joints in the World in the June issue of Texas Monthly. All summer we’ve been keeping track of all the other barbecue lists we could find. They aren’t all in Texas and many are
UPDATE: All tickets to the Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival are SOLD OUT.Tickets for the Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival are available for purchase. VIP tickets have already sold out, but there are General Admission tickets remaining. If you’re unfamiliar with the festival, here are a few key details:When – Sunday,
– Tickets for the Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival are sold out.– In an interview in Scientific American, Richard Wrangham says that barbecue is what made us human starting back a couple million years ago.– The US Open tennis tournament in New York will be serving barbecue this year from
We wrote about Bohemia Chips a few weeks ago when the Czech snack company announced plans to send a contest winner from the Czech Republic to Austin for the Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival. The company has sent an emissary to Texas in the form of Kazma Kazmitch.
– Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Morning News sat down with Pecan Lodge and their new landlord to try and bring the two together (there’s a well-documented frustration between the two). He brought along a tape recorder too.– Here’s a profile of five joints that are
Josh Ozersky announced the line-up for Meatopia Texas today at a press conference in San Antonio. That it was held at the Pearl Brewery made it no secret that the Granary, which is located at the Pearl, would be featured. Well, that and the fact that Ozersky has
– Get some Franklin Barbecue brisket infused bourbon at CU29 in Austin.– Behold the Widowmaker:@BBQsnob new barbecue cut? The Widowmaker beef rib roast! only 2 per carcass, but sexy as hell! pic.twitter.com/VTC35AuqKP — Salt & Time (@saltandtime) August 8, 2013 – Amy Evans of the Southern
– They take their BBQ pits pretty seriously in Lone Star, Texas. A pit dispute led to shots being fired in a convenience store parking lot.– Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin needed someone to choose their food vendors. They chose Austin pitmaster John Mueller. This should be
– Big Red injects a little humor into their new ad campaign for the “Big Red BBQ Bottle.” The ad is just disturbing. – Beef experts believe 2014 might be a make-or-break year for the US beef industry if herd numbers don’t improve rapidly.– They’re farming insects in Spain to
The lines at Pecan Lodge are pretty crazy these days. At the opening bell last Saturday I counted over 150 people waiting for barbecue. Today, owners Diane and Justin Fourton are announcing a few changes that may ease lines like this one:From the press release:
A Czech potato chip manufacturer has created a flavor of specifically grilled meats in their Bohemia line. Their plan is to export it to the US, and they want to begin in Texas. From their press release – “Where else should we test the new flavor of
– On the Smithsonian blog Food & Think, they discuss the origins of American barbecue. They also surmise how individual styles that are so distinct from one another emerged. In the explanation they go a little light on the Texas contribution.– Raising beef is still a
“Great barbecue clearly makes creative teams think alike.” Thus begins the explanation of Parade‘s food editor on why yesterday’s cover had a curious resemblance to Texas Monthly’s June cover. The Texas Monthly team worked with Franklin Barbecue to style a tray of smoked meats fitting for
– It’s Texas Monthly BBQ Week. You have two more days to indulge on special menu items at joints across the state. A percentage of proceeds to benefit Foodways Texas. Read about it here, here, here, and here.– There was a
Spenser Magazine just published a story about the Kreuz and Smitty’s barbecue feud in Lockhart. The story outlined how the two sides of the family came together to create Schmidt Family Barbecue in Bee Cave. It was a great piece, but the companion blog post
– Killen’s BBQ in Pearland had their pit stolen, then recovered a couple of days later. This after having a hot brisket stolen straight from the pit last month. I think they need a smoker enclosure.BBQ pit has been found, a little more
Plano, Texas is about to get a solid barbecue option. Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ joint, Lockhart Smokehouse has announced plans to expand. The original location opened in 2011 in the Bishop Arts District of Oak Cliff has seen their business grow to a point where owners Jill and
– Pecan Lodge in Dallas, a Top 4 BBQ joint in the state, just might be moving. Owner and pitmaster Justin Fourton hinted at this possibility in our interview a few weeks back. Some even speculate that their next stop might not be in Dallas.– A
– Good news. We announced a couple weeks back that Hashknife on the Chisholm was closing. Word from owner Jim McLennan is that they’re reopening with a limited menu.After a hard 3 wks of thinking,refurbished kitchen,and a new staff,hashknife will reopen with bbq and burgers only,Opening wed june
I read your plea, John T. Edge. Until now I’ve been a great admirer of your writing. It’s hard to read the words without hearing your buttery Southern intonation like the read-along records of my youth. It is through your articles and lectures that I’ve learned much of
Terry Wootan is best known as the owner of Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Q, and some in Llano might know him for his real estate business. But the I bet few would expect to see him as a dramatic actor on a television show.That might be
Happy Friday:
Senior editor Katy Vine, author of the Greatest Barbecue Story Ever Told, put together a BBQ Road Trip soundtrack. It features fourteen songs with a variation of the word “barbecue” in the title, six tracks called “Salt and Pepper,” three boogies, an ode to white bread, and one
– Making the most recent Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ joint list has been big local news for a few barbecue joint across Texas. Among those is Fargo’s in Bryan, The Granary and Two Bros. BBQ Market in San Antonio, Hatfield’s in Rockport, Hays
Our barbecue editor was recently interviewed by Sunrise, Australia’s self-described “number one breakfast show.” The hosts ask him about Texas-style barbecue (and the difference between an Aussie sear and our preferred smoking method), if he is “the Simon Cowell of the brisket,” and his favorite places in Texas. Watch the
– A look back at the life of Calvin “Boots” Payne, the founder of Cousin’s Bar-B-Q, who passed away last week.– Guns and Roses played a show in Dallas and took the opportunity to stop by Pecan Lodge and help make some sausage.Guns+Roses stopped
Yesterday, we received an impassioned letter to the Barbecue Editor concerning The 50 Best BBQ Joints list. Here it is in full:I’ve just reviewed your Top 50 Best Barbecue Joints issue and it’s a total joke! How can you include _______ but not __________? And what
The phone rang. “Mr. Vaughn, this is the Parker County Sheriff’s office.” There wasn’t actually an officer at the other end of the line. It was Big Jim McLennan calling, the pitmaster at Hashknife on the Chisholm in Peadenville, Texas. He has always been good at making jokes, but
–A deal was announced yesterday that “would be the biggest takeover of an American company by a Chinese concern.” That deal was for the Shuanghui Group to purchase Virginia based Smithfield Foods which is the largest pork processor in the world.-Tune in to Austin’s
As if defending the TMBBQ Top 50 weren’t enough, Texas Monthly Barbecue Editor Daniel Vaughn is also in the middle of his book tour for The Prophets of Smoked Meat, which brought him last week to the city he now says is “the capital of Texas BBQ.”
Robert Irvine is the host of Restaurant Impossible on the Food Network. He travels around the country to help bring failing restaurants out of the doldrums. In March he brought his crew and $10,000 to Lufkin. Lynn Bryan, the owner of Bryan’s Smokehouse was in desperate need of
A month ago I wrote a friendly rebuttal to Robert Sietsema, the (former) Village Voice food critic who wrote an inflammatory piece back in March arguing that New York City was the country’s newest barbecue capital. I pointed out that Sietsema was simply a misguided
Traditional barbecue is having a moment, not just in Texas but around the country. So it’s natural to wonder when the backlash might come. Though it may be overdoing it to call Josh Ozersky’s story in the Wall Street Journal, “The New Barbecue,” a call to arms, he does
LAST WEEK WE RELEASED our quinquennial list of the state’s top fifty joints. Today the full story is online and on newsstands everywhere. It’s packed with reviews explaining why we liked our top joints and how we picked the best (and incredible photography by Wyatt McSpadden). This year, however,
Things have changed dramatically since Texas Monthly published its last list of the state’s top fifty barbecue joints, in 2008. Not only has there been an unprecedented flourishing of great new joints in the past five years (sixteen of the places on this year’s list were not even open in
